When Grace Finds Us in the Depths - Jonah Chapter 2

You're listening to the Christ Our Cornerstone

podcast ministry of Christ Our Cornerstone Church

in O 'Neill, Nebraska. I'm Pastor Logan Merrick,

and it's our prayer that this message strengthens

your faith and draws you closer to Christ. Let's

dive in. So now let's look back at verse 17,

just for a moment. Hopefully you've got a Bible.

If you don't, it'll be right up here before you,

but we do have Bibles in the back. Would love

for you to take one. It is our gift to you. And

so Jonah. Chapter one, verse 17 says, and the

Lord appointed a great fish to swallow up Jonah.

And Jonah was in the belly of the fish for three

days and three nights. Now, why is the three

days, three nights? Why is that relevant? What

do we talk about? It foreshadows Jesus, right?

It's foreshadowing the death of Jesus. And we're

gonna actually look more at the foreshadowing

of the death of Jesus through Jonah's prayer.

All right? So first and foremost, I asked Micah

the other day, I said, hey, do you think that

it's possible that Jonah was swallowed by a whale?

And without thinking, he just goes, yeah. And

I go, really? You think so? He goes, have you

ever seen a whale? Whales are big. Seems pretty

cut and dry to me. I'm like, all right. But I

think... that when we look at the book of Job,

it talks about Leviathan, this beast, this monster,

the sea monster of chaos that only God can control.

I believe that God used Leviathan. He appointed

him to go and to swallow up Jonah. And so Jonah

is now in the belly of the whale or fish, Leviathan.

So let's go chapter two, verse one. We're gonna

read the entire thing and then I will start back

at the beginning. Then Jonah prayed to the Lord

his God from the belly of the fish saying I called

out to the Lord out of my distress if you've

got a highlighter highlight that and He answered

me out of the belly of Sheol I cried and you

heard my voice For you cast me into the deep

into the heart of the seas and the flood surrounded

me all your waves and your billows passed over

me Then I said I am driven away from your sight.

You should highlight and circle that Yet I shall

again look upon your holy temple. The waters

closed in over me to take my life, and the deep

surrounded me. Weeds were wrapped around my head

at the roots of the mountains. I went down to

the land whose bars closed upon me forever, yet

you brought my life up from the pit, O Lord my

God. When my life was fainting away, I remembered

the Lord and my prayer came to you into your

holy temple. Those who pay regard to vain idols

forsake their hope of steadfast love. But I,

with the voice of thanksgiving, will sacrifice

to you what I vowed I will pay. Salvation belongs

to the Lord." And the Lord spoke to the fish

and it vomited Jonah out upon the dry land. All

right, so today we're unpacking Jonah's prayer.

This kind of idea that I'm gonna drive home for

you guys is, is no matter how far we've fallen,

God's grace reaches deeper and is available to

all who call him sincerely. I have, since I was

a small child, for whatever reason, I hate to

be alone. And so when I was a little kid, if

I even thought that I was alone in my house,

I would panic and I would have severe panic attacks.

And so I hate being alone. And now, as an adult,

like, yeah, I don't mind being alone. But if

Tracy, if Tracy goes on a retreat or something

like that and, you know, she's gone for any long

periods of time, she'll tell you, like, I get

anxious. But in a way, that's like, I need someone

to talk to. I cannot stand silence. I hate it

with everything in me, except for when I'm hunting.

Outside of that, I hate silence. When I'm doing

sermon prep, when I'm writing, or even in my

own prayer time, I have to have some sort of

low, like something that can't distract me, but

I have to have some kind of sound that's going.

When I'm sleeping, my wife can tell you this,

I sleep with a show, a book, anything going because

I cannot stay in silence. And so why do I share

that with you? because there's many times in

my life where God will shut things off. He will

shut me in and force me to listen. Does anybody

else know what I'm talking about? Have you ever

been shut off from everything and finding yourself

going, oh man, this is very uncomfortable? And

the Lord's like, yeah, I know. And in your discomfort,

we're gonna have a conversation. And so that's

happened to me. many times, and specifically

when I was touring and God was telling me it's

time to come home and get off the road and no

longer be away from your family and all these

things. It took God ripping all the things away.

And he's like, hey, you are one, worshiping your

own fame. You wear this fake mask of Christianity.

You stand up on a stage, you play for your own

glory, not for mine. You slap my name on it to

sell things. We need to have a conversation because

what's happening here is, is it's your own self

-glorification and you actually aren't worshiping

me, you're worshiping yourself. And so I'm gonna

strip everything away and I'm gonna pull the

mask from your face and I'm gonna make you see

that it's me, not you. Does that make sense?

That's where Jonah is right now. God's like,

you've ran, you've ran, you've ran. Now, I'm

going to appoint a fish to swallow you up. And

it's gonna be just me and you, brother. In the

stomach of this fish, just me and you. You ever

have those come to Jesus meetings? Yeah? Yeah,

man. God will strip everything away. I don't

wanna get too far ahead of myself. but God will

strip it all away. And the thing is, Jonah has

this fish, right, that rescues Jonah. When I

say rescue, it's not the rescue he wanted, right?

It's not the rescue he wanted, but it's the rescue

that he needed. And so sometimes God's greatest

mercy looks like our greatest nightmare. And

so I'm calling this the theology of the belly.

We often think of prayer as an act of devotion,

a sweet hour of prayer where we come to God out

of love, but that isn't what happened with Jonah.

Jonah didn't pray when he boarded the ship to

Tarshish. He didn't pray when the storm was breaking

the boat apart. He didn't even pray when he was

being tossed into the sea. Jonah only prayed

when? What does it say? Let's look back, verses

one and two. Then Jonah prayed to the Lord his

God from the belly of the fish saying I called

out to the Lord in my what? Am I distress Does

that sound like a affection for the Lord? That

sounds like affliction And so Jonah only prayed

when he ran out of options How many of us? Will

do all the things we will distract ourselves

in all the ways Whatever it looks like work,

family, distraction, whether it's football, sports,

whatever it may be, careers, we can distract

ourselves so much and then when God takes that

away to get your attention, all of a sudden you

start praying. But you're not praying out of

the affection that you have for the Lord, you're

praying out of the affliction. So this wasn't

a cry of affection, it was a cry of desperation.

Jonah was a prophet, a man of the cloth, and

a man who knew the right answers. Yet his heart

was miles away from God. He was caught up in

his own fame, his own nationalism, and his own

self -sufficiency. He thought he was the hero

of his own story. But God had to take Jonah to

the belly of Sheol. What is Sheol? Hell. Now

you can be like, Pastor Logan, he wasn't like,

like that's figurative, right? No, he was, he

was in hell and I'm gonna get into that in just

a second. So to the roots of the mountains wrapped

in seaweed and darkness, God doesn't crush him,

but he does deconstruct him. And not in the way

that we have this popular deconstruction with

Christians nowadays. That's not what I'm talking

about. He's destruct, he is destructing, he's

performing deconstruction in his messed up theology.

because as you guys, you've heard me say it over

and over and over again, there's a difference

between knowledge and knowledge. A lot of us

in here have a lot of this, don't got a lot of

this. We know God and doctrine and theology in

the scriptures here, but it hasn't necessarily

penetrated the heart, which is why Ezekiel sees

the vision of a new heart being placed, because

it takes a new heart. And so, God appoints this

fish to stop Jonah and his tracks because Jonah

was moving too fast towards his own destruction

so God will appoint a fish in your life to be

a job loss a broken relationship a season of

silence To bring you to a place of forced quietness

So he does this to show you who you really are

Not the person that you're pretending to be Let

me tell you It's real easy in ministry, real

easy in ministry to wear this fake facade. And

so I jokingly said about, you know, being upset

about the game and being frustrated with the

Huskers. And I sent a text to Vicki and Lowell

and apologizing. But in reality, they saw who

my family sees every day. They don't see the

facade that is here. They saw part of who I really

am, broken and messed up. And so the thing is,

is all of us wear a facade of some kind. There

can be a lot of men in this room that look, that

come across as great fathers and great husbands,

but when you get them home, they're brutal. They're

either, abusive or they're distant. They're not

who they claim to be. I mean, for crying out

loud, we've seen legitimately serial killers

who were elders in their church. I mean, I know

that's an extreme, but do you see what I'm saying?

It comes down to this. We wear a fake facade

that is not real in front of everyone else and

God will do everything he can to save you from

yourself. And so he will break the facade. And

so if you're unwilling to break the facade, just

know he will and it's not going to feel good.

How many pastors have you seen just in the last

year? Famous pastors got massive platforms. The

facade came down because they were unwilling

to bring the facade down themselves. And so just

know, the scriptures are clear. Your sins will

find you out. It says that in Numbers. So if

you're unwilling to take the facade off, God

will do everything he can. He's gonna strip it

all away and he's gonna force you to be still

and be quiet. And he goes, all right, it's time

to get real. And that's where Jonah is now. Now

I wanna talk about for just a second, there's

this thing called, have you guys ever heard of

cheap grace and costly grace? Have you ever heard

of that before? That comes from Dietrich Bonhoeffer,

theologian. He died as a martyr in World War

II. But he has this, and this is a great book.

Write this down if you wanna read it. It's one

that I've read several times and it's always

a good reminder. But he has a book called The

Cost of Discipleship. And in it, he starts the

entire book like this. He says, cheap grace is

grace without discipleship, grace without the

cross, grace without Jesus Christ living and

incarnate. But costly grace is the treasure hidden

in the field. For the sake of it, man will gladly

go and sell all that he has. And so what does

he say? Most of us live with cheap grace in mind.

We live the facade with cheap grace in mind.

It didn't cost us anything, we don't care. But

he's like, there are those who understand what

they've been saved from, they've been broken,

they've been quieted, and they understand the

costly grace of what it costs God. And so they

live differently. This, of what is happening

with Jonah, is Jonah had been experiencing cheap

grace, the grace that he was unwilling to give

to the Ninevites, that's cheap grace. But now

he's experiencing costly grace because God has

literally taken him to the pit of hell. And so

this is where we often get everything wrong in

the modern church. Cheap grace is the idea that

God is a nice guy. He overlooks our sin because

it's no big deal. But the grace Jonah finds is

the dark and costly grace. It is grace that identifies

the jacked up way we see God and demands we change.

It's the grace that strips the mask off because

it loves the person under the mask too much to

let them live a lie. This grace cost God everything.

It cost him his son. And when you are in the

belly of your own personal fish, you realize

that you aren't being punished. You're being

purged. You are being shown a grace so deep that

once you taste it, you can't keep your mouth

shut about it. You stop playing church and you

start living in the reality of a savior who went

into the real sheol, the real hell, so that you

could come out of yours. Have you ever met someone

who was, well, let me back up. First off, You

don't have to have a crazy testimony to experience

costly grace. Here's what I mean. You don't have

to have a testimony of you've been saved from

years of black tar heroin, right? But I've met

drug addicts, prostitutes, people who have had

these crazy testimonies. And when they come to

know the costly grace of Jesus, they are forever

changed and they're forever changed in a way

that they constantly can't stop talking about

Jesus. You know what I'm talking about? And I'll

look at it and be like, man, I wish I was on

black tar heroin to have a story like that. Not

really. Right. And one day I had to because I

can't remember why we were having this conversation

at our house. But I think it was Aria that said

something about like not really having a testimony.

She's just known Jesus and she's got a pretty

awesome dad and mom, you know, but she's like,

but we don't really like have like a testimony

and And at first I'm like, oh yeah, you know,

but then then the Holy Spirit was like no that

That is a testimony. That's a testimony to the

goodness of God. God's like, it's the costly

grace. You still have to live it out and understand

that you've been saved from yourself. So you

don't have to have this crazy story. But what

I want you to hear, though, is if you have experienced

costly grace, you should live in a way that you

know you've experienced costly grace. You won't

shut up about it. You're constantly talking about

it. The only people who hate when people are

constantly talking about the goodness of God

and what they've been saved from are the people

who love cheap grace. And so what happens? The

people who have experienced costly grace ultimately

get beat into submission by the people that love

cheap grace because they don't want to be reminded.

So I'm going to ask you, examine yourself. What

type of grace are you living under? Point number

two. Wait, hold on, I don't think I gave point

number one. Did I? I did? Oh, cool. All right,

cool. A cry of affliction, not affection. Hopefully

Dustin was on it, because I wasn't. All right,

point number two. Don't anybody email me on this,

all right? If it is, if you do, my email address

is k .tomjack at gmail .com. Distance can be

hell. Now, I mean that in the way of both, like

to get your attention, but also the literal hell.

So let's look at verses three through five. For

you cast me into the deep, into the heart of

the seas, and the flood surrounded me. All your

waves and your billows passed over me. Then I

said, I am driven away from your sight. Verse

five, or yet I shall again look upon your Holy

temple. The waters closed in over me to take

my life and the deep surrounded me. Weeds were

wrapped around my head. And so Jonah gets what

he asked for, right? What was he asking for?

To get out of, to be distant from God, right?

He wanted away from him. So God's like, all right.

Thy will be done, right? Except wasn't exactly

what Jonah wanted. So Jonah acknowledges a terrifying

reality, for you cast me into the deep, into

the heart of the seas. So we have to remember

that Jonah was a fugitive. He wasn't just on

a boat. He was on a quest for distance. He wanted

to get so far away from the presence of God that

God would finally just stop pursuing him. That's

what's funny about all of this. God does not

stop pursuing until the end. He wanted God to

leave him alone. I'm gonna ask you, have you

ever been there? Have you ever just wanted God

to leave you alone? Charles Spurgeon calls him

the hound of heaven. He doesn't stop pursuing.

Have you ever been there? He just keeps coming

up. That's what I love when you hear Phil Robertson's

testimony and he just talks about how God pursued

him over and over. And he kept pushing him away

and pushing him away and God still kept pursuing

him and kept pursuing him. So you can want distance

from God and he will give you distance, but he

will also continue to keep pursuing. But then

there will come a time where, and I'm going to

get to that in just a minute, where he will stop

pursuing. So maybe you thought, if I could just

get far enough away from the church stuff or

the conviction, I could finally just live my

life in peace. But Jonah discovers a horrifying

paradox. God eventually gives us what we want.

So here's the reality of hell. I want everyone

to pay attention. If you zoned out on me, this

is what you need to hear more than anything,

because this is literally life or death. And

so people often argue, they'll bring this to

me as a pastor, that a loving God would never

send someone to a place of eternal torment and

darkness. Have you heard that before? If God

is so loving, he would not send someone to eternal

damnation. What you have to understand is the

most terrifying part of hell is distance from

God. You could be like, I don't know, that doesn't

sound too bad. When you know that God is literal

light, love, justice, and mercy, it's terrifying.

The flames and the fires of hell are but just

a portion of the torture because it's the other

that is terrifying. So I would say we misunderstand

the nature of hell. Hell is not God being unloving.

It is God being just, and he's just enough to

respect our choice. He is so just and good that

he's like, okay, this is what you want. I'm giving

you that. You truly want distance from me. Why

would I put you in a place of eternal eternity

with me in my presence. And so, if you spend

your entire life running from God saying, leave

me alone, eventually God will say that will be

done. As Jonah sinks into the heart of the seas,

he's experiencing a physical manifestation of

hell. It is darkness. It is despair. And it is

the absolute absence of the light of God's presence.

Hell is simply the place where God is no longer

there to restrain the darkness. Is God there?

Yes, but is he there to restrain the darkness?

No. So if you keep asking for God to go away,

he'll give you what you want, and he'll stop

restraining the darkness. And so here's a warning.

This should be up here if you wanna write this

down. We think the distance, that distance from

God will bring us freedom. But as Jonah found

out, the distance only brings the flood and the

billows. Sin promises a playground, it delivers

a grave. It gives you exactly what you asked

for, but it turns out to be nothing what you

hoped for. And so, but here's the good news.

Let me pause for just a second. The reason why

this perfectly encapsulates in the words that

Jonah uses, he uses water, going down right so

literally God takes him again we're going down

more so God takes him literally to the base of

the ocean and so water and mountains he uses

both of those things and so in Hebrew culture

they believe that Sheol so mountains represent

God and going up to the sanctuary of God, and

ultimately that's why you see Moses go on top

of a mountain and God visits him there. Throughout

all the Old Testament, even into the New Testament,

the transfiguration happens on a mountain. So

there's tons and tons of mountains. It's supposed

to be God's footstool. They believe that Eden

was on a mountain. And so, at the base of the

mountain, they believe is where angels and...

supernatural beings kind of come in and out.

So you heard of Jacob's ladder, right? And so

they believe it's at the base of the mountain

and underneath mountains and in oceans, that

is Sheol. That's hell. So it's not figurative,

like they believe that that's exactly where it

is. Is that where it's at? I don't know. I couldn't,

I mean, sounds good to me. So when he's literally

going down, he is literally in a physical manifestation

of what the Hebrews understood hell to be. utter

darkness, utter despair, and completely distant

from God. And so, but here's the beautiful thing.

What does God do? We read it, right? So what

does God do? He takes him there, Jonah begins

to pray, what happens? What did it say? Where

does Jonah, what ultimately happens to Jonah?

He's thrown up onto the shore. So we see that

God's mercy happens. You can be like, that doesn't

seem like mercy. We'll get to that. So the reach

of the sovereign hand, even in the depths, Jonah

realizes something profound. So if you look at

verse four, it says, I have been cast out from

your sight, yet I shall again look upon your

holy temple. Even when Jonah felt he had finally

succeeded in losing God, he realized he couldn't

outrun God's sovereignty. He was cast out, but

he wasn't wiped out. And so ultimately, this

is Jonah saying, Yeah, I'm not dead yet. I'm

here in hell. This is awful. So this tells me

I should probably do the thing you're telling

me to do. So this is the tension of the gospel.

So you've got one, you've got the justice of

God. God allows you to feel the weight of the

distance you chose. But then you've got the mercy

of God. His hand is never too short to reach

into the dark. And so I want you to hear me.

Don't wait until the weeds are wrapped around

your head to realize that the distance you're

craving is actually killing you. You might be

in a sinful lifestyle right now that feels like

freedom, but if you look closely, the water is

rising. You're experiencing a personal hell,

one of your own making. Anxiety, fear, and a

hollowed out soul is happening. And so Jonah's

only hope and your only hope is to stop swimming

away and start looking back towards his holy

temple. So you don't have to wait until you've

hit the bottom to call out. So, but if you are

at the bottom, know this, the God of grace is

a deep sea diver. He goes down to the depths

to pull up the runaways. One of my favorite C

.S. Lewis, It's a very short book story. It's

called The Great Divorce. And The Great Divorce

is about this man who's getting on a bus and

he's lived in this very gray town. And in this

gray town, you've got people like Napoleon Bonaparte,

who never leaves his home and he's constantly

running around his house and trying to find things

to conquer. And he's trapped inside his home.

And so he lives in this very gray town and the

people are always arguing. And so they're fighting

to get on this bus. They get on the bus and as

the bus begins to take them up, they arrive at

this, at heaven. All this time they've had no

idea that they're dead. So they go up, they have

people that come out to greet them that they've

known in their life. And the people that they've

known are people that maybe had like one guy

experiences, he experienced as a guy who murdered

a friend of his and the murderer is in heaven.

And he's like, how can you be here? And I'm down

there. And he's like, he's like the grace of

Jesus right before I, before I died, you know,

I, I was a terrible man. And, you know, and it

was, and he starts telling it the goodness of

God. And he's like, you've got to come with me.

You've got to come with me. You've got to come

with me. And so you get all these different stories

of all these people that they're being begged

just come. And it says that the people that were

in hell, they're just these kind of mystical

spirits, but the people in heaven are real. And

when the spirits try to start walking towards

the city, the ground, the grass is made of crystal,

and it's very hard on their feet. And a lot of

them either reject going because they're like,

I don't want to be there. I don't want any of

that. I'm fine where I'm at. And then others

try. And they're like, this is painful. I'm not

doing this. And then there's only one or two

that actually accept it. And they experience

the pain to ultimately go and be in front of

God in His holy city. And so it's a really cool

book. But in it, there's this illustration of

the journey of the souls from hell to heaven.

and many of the souls reject heaven, preferring

their isolation and their autonomy that they

had in hell. They are unwilling to give up their

preferences, illustrating how the ultimate desire

to be left alone can lead to self -imposed exile

from God's love and presence. And so this poignant

narrative reminds us that hell is not a torture

chamber, but rather the tragic fulfillment of

our choice to be distant from God. Now you'd

be like, Pastor Logan, are you saying that you

don't believe in eternal torment? No, I do, I

do. I think that C .S. Lewis is just giving us

an illustration that the worst part is the distance

from God. And so Lewis has this quote, there

are only two kinds of people in the end, those

who say to God, thy will be done, and those to

whom God says in the end, thy will be done all

that are in hell choose it without their self

-choice there could be no hell so this should

be right up here hell is the ultimate fulfillment

of the human desire to be left alone by god just

a couple more points point number three Mercy

swims in deep waters. So if we look verses six

through 10, at the roots of the mountains I went

to the land and I went down, at the roots of

the mountains I went down to the land whose bars

closed upon me forever yet you brought up my

life from the pit. Oh Lord my God when my life

was fainting away I remembered the Lord and my

prayer came to you into your holy temple. Those

who pay regard to vain idols forsake their hope

of steadfast love But with the voice of thanksgiving

I will sacrifice to you and I will I will I will

have valid what I will pay Salvation belongs

to the Lord and the Lord spoke to the fish and

it vomited Jonah onto the dry land and so Here's

something that's really incredible Jonah sees

the mercy seat of God in the deep In hell, he

sees the mercy seat of God. What is the mercy

seat? So Jonah finds himself at the roots of

the mountains, a place where earth's bars were

closing in on him forever. In this pit, he remembers

the mercy seat of God. Where's the mercy seat?

A little Old Testament quiz going on. Ark of

the Covenant, right? So the Ark of the Covenant,

you've got these angels that sit on top of the

Ark of the Covenant, right? And there it goes

out. And on that is the mercy seat. And so what

happens on the mercy seat? Well, the sacrifice,

the sacrifice is made. The blood is sprinkled

onto the mercy seat. This is a representation

of Christ. And so as I was preparing for this,

I couldn't stop thinking about remember that

song in the 90s? I don't remember her name. I

should have wrote it down, but but it went, I'm

running. I'm running, I'm running to the mercy

seat. You guys know that song? Where Jesus is

calling. Everybody's looking at me like. You

don't want to sing it man? Oh, I thought you

were gonna say, but I don't want to sing it.

But it says I'm running to the mercy seat where

Jesus is calling. He will provide the healing.

I'm running to the mercy seat. It says that His

blood will flow freely and He will provide my

healing. And so I was like, man, that's Jonah

right now. Like he's going, I'm running to the

mercy seat. I am running to the mercy seat, begging

Jesus, begging the Father. Please, please, I'm

stupid. Forgive me. There's a couple people that

were like Jonah is saying Can we all agree like

he's being stupid? He's running from God and

He did everything he could and now he finds himself

in his own self -made hell and now he's crying

out to God He's not stupid now, but he was Pastor

Logan's been stupid many times. I grow from it.

Hopefully It's the grace of God. And so Jonah

knows exactly what the lyrics of the song means.

Because in the temple, the mercy seat was done

the lid of the Ark of the Covenant, where the

blood of the sacrifice was sprinkled to cover

the sins of the people. And Jonah realizes that

he doesn't need a better plan. He doesn't need

a better boat, and he doesn't need a better reputation.

He needs a sacrifice. He needs God to step in.

So even in the deepest darkest hell of your own

making mercy is swimming there you cannot out

sink the reach of God's grace So but there's

this funny part in verse 8 does anyone find that

this part to be kind of strange like He's talking

about Mercy right and and I see your Holy Temple

and you're you know, you've brought me up from

out of the pit He's essentially quoting Psalms

by the way But then he says in verse 8 those

who pay regard to vain idols forsake their hope

of steadfast love But I does anyone feel like

that's kind of a strange like we're rolling along.

He's saying a prayer He's talking about the mercy

of God. He's quoting the Psalms and being rescued

and then he talks about vain idols Does anyone

else find that to be a strange like it feels

like a hiccup? so Theologians are they they're

split, but I will tell you where I stand. So

there are those that say, yeah, Jonah was talking

about his own idolatry, his own political idolatry

and his own fame idolatry. And so he's saying,

I'm rejecting all those things. I don't agree

with that. I believe that he is talking about

the Ninevites. That he is looking at it and once

again being self -righteous That he wants that

costly grace while offering cheap grace Why do

I think that Well, I know the end of the story

and how it how it ends but also it says but I

But I I will I will be the one that makes sacrifices.

I will be the good Christian right and so An

idol is anything you look to for meaning, for

worth, security, that only God can provide. And

as people, as spouses, and as professionals,

we turn our careers and our self -image into

sin factories. And here's the difference. This

will be up here. An idol will always eventually

sacrifice you on its own altar. Your idol, if

your idol is your legacy, what you're leaving

behind. By the way, leaving behind a legacy is

not a bad thing. It is a good thing. It is a

godly thing. It is in Genesis. We see it. Leaving

behind inheritances and wanting to have a legacy,

none of that stuff is bad. But when that thing

becomes all important to you of having this legacy

to be remembered, when people forget about you,

you will be crushed by it. If your idol is your

own self -sufficiency, it will abandon you when

you fail. But God is the only God who puts himself

on the altar for the sake of the idolater. So

here's the problem with Jonah and with us. Is

Jonah truly repentant? Or is he still just playing

church? So like I said, I think that he is talking

about the Ninevites own pagan idolatrous ways.

He's seeing himself as worthy to be saved and

the Ninevites unworthy to be saved. He's saying,

their wickedness is way worse than mine. I'm

worthy of being saved. I'm on the all -star team.

I'm a prophet. I'm a mouthpiece of God. I should

get the costly grace, but they should not. And

so how often do we do this? We want God's grace

for our own mistakes, but we want God's judgment

for the other people. We want costly grace for

ourselves, but we offer that cheap grace, or

no grace at all. So Jonah's still acting a fool.

Thank you for somebody that at least laughed.

But even in his imperfection, he still lands

on one truth that changes everything. Verse nine,

what does it say? Somebody read it out, tell

me. The very last line, what is that very last

line in verse nine? Salvation belongs to the

Lord. He is quoting the Psalms. That is the entirety.

If you were to sum up all of the Bible in one

verse, if you said, sum it up, give me the thesis

statement, Pastor Logan. It's that salvation

belongs to the Lord. You cannot save yourself.

He is the one that does it for you. He does the

heavy lifting. He is the one that saves. And

so J .I. Packer in his book, Knowing God, says

this. We have seen why the thought of grace means

so little to some church people, namely because

they do not share the beliefs about God and man,

which it presupposes. Now we have to ask, why

should this thought mean so much to others? The

answer is not far to seek. Indeed, it is evident

from what has already been said. It is surely

clear that once a person is convinced that his

state and his need are as described, the New

Testament gospel of grace cannot but sweep him

off his feet with wonder and joy, for it tells

how our judge has become our Savior. If you did

not understand what he's saying, he's ultimately

saying this. When you come to the realization

that you are not good and you desperately need

Christ to save you. You're not any better than

the person next door. That's when grace sweeps

you off your feet and you cannot be Overwhelmed

with wonder and joy because then you understand

that the judge who can totally destroy your soul

has now become your Savior So wrapping up right

here I Have the subtitle the great puke a foreshadowing

of Christ Jonah couldn't swim out of the fish

He couldn't bargain his way out, only God could

speak to the monster. When verse 10 says that

the fish vomited Jonah upon the dry land, it's

not just a gross detail, it's a prophecy. Anybody

want to guess why it's a prophecy? Because Jesus

himself called this the sign of Jonah. Just as

the fish couldn't hold Jonah, the grave couldn't

hold Jesus. Death swallowed Christ, but Christ

could not be shut up for he spoke to death and

sheol and it vomited him forth. And when he rose,

he didn't come alone. He broke the bars of the

pit and brought with him everyone who had been

waiting for the true mercy seat. And so, here's

my call to you. I'm gonna ask that you stop playing

church. I'm gonna ask that if you have been here

with a mask on, you are not who you claim to

be. Only your spouse knows that, or your kids

or grandkids know that. Here's what I'm gonna

ask you to do. Stop playing church. You're only

drowning. Stop feeding the vain idols of your

reputation and your self -reliance, because they're

not gonna save you. They'll let you sink. I want

you to experience the costly grace that doesn't

just pat you on the back but pulls you out of

the grave. So the hand of God is reaching out

to you right now to pull you from your own personal

hell. I have this quote. It's from Martin Lloyd

-Jones, famous pastor and theologian. It is grace

at the beginning and grace at the end. so that

when you and I come to lie upon our deathbeds,

the one thing that should comfort and help us

and strengthen us, there is the thing that helped

us in the beginning. Not what we have been, not

what we have done, but the grace of God in Jesus

Christ our Lord. The Christian life starts with

grace, it continues with grace, and it ends with

grace. Grace, wondrous grace. By the grace of

God, I am what I am, yet not I, but the grace

of God, which was with me." So what he's saying

is this, it's grace that saves you, not works.

It's grace that continues your sanctification,

not your works. And it's grace that will sustain

you on your deathbed and into heaven. And so

if you're here and you've been playing church

and you've not actually experienced the costly

grace of God, I would ask that you would remove

the mask and be real with yourself and respond.

Let's pray.